Principal Staff Data Center Network Engineer

Designworks Talent • Bellevue, WA

20d • Hybrid

About The Position

The company is developing a next-generation AI cloud platform and seeks a Principal Data Center Network Engineer to build its networking foundation. This greenfield role will define network architecture for GPU clusters, tenant isolation, security, and high-performance connectivity across a multi-tenant AI infrastructure platform.

As one of the earliest networking engineers on the infrastructure team, you will own the design, automation, operation, and evolution of the data center network. You will work across multiple vendors and collaborate with infrastructure, hardware, virtualization, platform, and cloud engineering teams. This is a highly visible Principal-level individual contributor role with significant technical ownership and influence over the organization's long-term networking strategy.

The role is hybrid in the Bellevue, Washington area, with approximately three days per week in the office. U.S.-based candidates open to relocation are encouraged to apply. U.S. work authorization is required; visa sponsorship is not currently available.

Requirements

• Significant experience designing, deploying, and operating large-scale data center networks in hyperscale cloud, AI infrastructure, HPC, or enterprise environments.
• Deep expertise across multiple enterprise networking platforms, with demonstrated experience supporting at least two major vendors such as Arista, Juniper, HPE, Cisco, or equivalent technologies.
• Strong understanding of multi-tenant networking, segmentation, tenant isolation, and network security architecture.
• Experience designing highly available, scalable, and automated networking solutions for mission-critical production environments.
• Experience implementing Infrastructure as Code, network automation, or programmable networking.
• Ability to operate independently in a fast-paced, early-stage environment where architecture, standards, and processes are being built from the ground up.
• U.S. work authorization.

Nice To Haves

• Experience supporting GPU clusters, AI infrastructure, high-performance computing (HPC), or large-scale distributed compute environments.
• Experience with high-bandwidth, low-latency technologies such as InfiniBand, RoCE, RDMA, or equivalent fabrics supporting AI workloads.
• Experience building networking platforms for hyperscale cloud providers, AI infrastructure companies, or cloud-native platforms.
• Familiarity with EVPN/VXLAN, Spine-Leaf architectures, BGP, Clos networking, and modern software-defined networking principles.
• Experience with network observability, telemetry, and automation frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, automate, and operate data center networking for large-scale GPU clusters, AI workloads, and multi-tenant cloud services.
• Develop secure tenant-isolation architectures that support performance, scalability, and security across customer environments.
• Design resilient, highly available network architectures across compute, storage, and infrastructure services.
• Work across multiple networking platforms and vendors, including Arista, Juniper, HPE, and other enterprise providers.
• Partner with hardware, infrastructure, virtualization, and platform engineering teams to optimize networking for AI training and inference workloads.
• Build infrastructure automation for deployment, configuration management, monitoring, and operational excellence.
• Define networking standards, architecture documentation, and engineering best practices as the infrastructure organization grows.
• Evaluate emerging networking technologies and help shape the long-term evolution of the AI networking platform.

Benefits

• Medical insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• 401(k) plan with company match
• Paid holidays
• Certain roles may be eligible for merit increases, an annual bonus, and long-term incentives based on individual performance.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: No Education Listed